Unworthy
by Manniness
Summary: It was in this moment that Mirana should have realized the truth: it was too late to save her sister from the madness of the will-be Red Queen.  Warning: rated M for desecration of the dead and other dark stuff.


**In summary**, here we can see a Moment between two sisters... a Moment during which Mirana should have realized that it was already Too Late to _save_ her sister...

**Notes:** This is sort of a companion piece to The Chamption's Hatter and yet sort of isn't. I can't say this _belongs_ with The Champion's Hatter, as Iracebeth and her fate are never mentioned, but it helps explain Mirana's fear of making the wrong decision, her quandary of Action vs. Inaction.

This short story is **rated M** for desecration of the dead and other dark stuff. You've been warned.

* * *

**UNWORTHY**

Mirana is simply Mirana. Here. Now. She is not a queen. No, not here. Here, with _these_ implements in her hands, she is not even a fully grown woman. She takes a deep breath, inhaling the scent of freshly tilled earth and midnight and the coming mist and rain. She listens to the sound of eternal peace, of rest and redemption. She closes her eyes and...

_"**Please**, Racie! This is** interesting**! And far more useful than that Dominion nonsense you're studying."_

_Across the table, her older sister listlessly flicked her perfectly manicured nails against the various jars and flasks and pots that make up every alchemist's apprentice's table. Including Mirana's._

_She gave a disdainful sniff at a pot of Wishful Thinking and drawled, "Useful is it? I **highly** doubt that anything **you** could brew would expose the truth, reveal a betrayer, or conquer an enemy like a decent threat of beheading can!"_

_"Beheading..." Mirana echoed, her hand pressing against her stomach as if the mild pressure might stop it from rolling. She swallowed back her disgust and disquiet with audible effort._

_Iracebeth glanced up through her painted brows - Why had their parents allowed her to start wearing rogue and kohl so soon? Why, Racie just turned sixteen last month! Surely, she was still too young for such things! - and smiled That smile. The smile that Mirana had grown increasingly wary of. Probably because something very... unpleasant almost always followed that particular smile._

_"You can get anything you want with a good threat of beheading," Iracebeth lectured in an off-handed tone. "You needn't actually behead them, of course. It's just a threat."_

_"But... suppose the... victim was of a... martyr-ish bent and didn't mind... the, er..."_

_"Oh," Iracebeth replied, looking quite irked. "Well, in that case I suppose you would have to follow through. Otherwise what would everyone think? They'd say you'd gone soft. And then they'd never confess another secret, another guilty pleasure, another sin." She huffed, "Still. It would be his own fault for being so unreasonable!"_

_"Racie... please." Dear jars of jubilance and flasks of foresight, what **was** the Mock Turtle teaching her sister? "Change your subject of study. Should not the healing arts be just as worthy - if not more so! - as Dominion-ing?"_

_Her older sister snorted. "You're so naive, Miwana. Dominion is **necessary**. Why even you and your beloved, gentle potion makers practice it." Her sister tapped a small, pale, soft hand on the top of a sealed container of buttered fingers. "Where do you suppose **these** came from? Do you think they fell out of the sky? Or perhaps they were grown on trees? No, I suppose you thought some altruistic volunteers gave them up. Just for you to play with."_

_"They were not... forcibly obtained," she replied but even she could hear the hollowness of her own tone. After all, how did she **know** these fingers had been taken from the already dead? Was she not just like her sister, parroting empty words from her teacher?_

_Iracebeth threw back her head and laughed. The sound of it bounced from buttress to buttress, making Mirana's head pound and her heart race and her fists clench. Until it was Too Much._

_"**Stop, you horrid creature! You are not WORTHY of the healing arts. Why, I wouldn't stoop to using your skinny, pathetic, TINY fingers for potion ingredients if they were the last set in all of Underland!**"_

_Mirana's shout reverberated for a moment - a very long moment - before her sister planted her hands on the table and leaned toward her with a menacing glower. "**I** am unworthy, **little** sister?"_

_Shivering from reaction, Mirana could think of nothing to say._

_"We shall see, Miwana. Yes, one day we will **see** just who is **unworthy**!"_

And with that, the potions lesson that Mirana had begged and pleaded and cajoled her older sister into entertaining had been undeniably canceled. Mirana had stood - shell-shocked - and had watched her sister sweep from the room.

That had been the last time Mirana had been in a room alone with Iracebeth. She had dithered over whether or not to warn the king and queen, but - in the end - she had not.

And _that_ is Mirana's lesson, _her_ crime, _her_ sin.

"Racie, why couldn't we moderate each other?" she asks the night, the swirling clouds, the blowing wind, the misting rain. No, she and her sister had never brought out the best in each other. But now... _now_...

"Perhaps that can change."

Mirana takes a deep breath and, opening her eyes, steps down into the deep hole, crouches in the small wooden cradle that now houses her sister's body. Gently, she collects one of those still pale, still petite, still perfect hands.

"I was wrong, Racie," she whispers. "I was wrong about you not being worthy. I'm sorry."

And because this is the only way she knows how to mend the past, because even the most powerful draughts in all the known world are not capable of turning back time, Mirana gently cradles her sister's hand and...

Raindrops splatter on the shimmering steel blade: tiny, misty, wind-guided droplets and large, warm, salty ones. Mirana blinks her eyes and sets to work.


End file.
